With online marketing being different from traditional marketing, every business today needs to have an online presence. However, simply having a website is not enough. It is imperative that you improve your website's ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs) through effective search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. It's alarming to know that a whopping 90.63% of web pages fail to receive any organic traffic from Google. This emphasizes the crucial need for a strong SEO strategy, which seasoned SEO professionals must execute. However, choosing the right SEO company can be a daunting task, as not every agency possesses the industry expertise required to optimize website performance.
With countless SEO companies vying for your attention, it's imperative to select one that prioritizes fundamental essentials to enhance your SEO campaign efficacy, delivering optimal outcomes. A competent SEO company should stay updated with the latest industry trends and SEO tools as this field constantly evolves. In this blog post, we will discuss common SEO mistakes to avoid when selecting the best SEO company for your business.
Why hire an SEO company?
When running any website or getting started with any business, it is vital to have an online presence. With the increase in the number of users surfing the internet for products or services, digital marketing has drastically increased. Thus, businesses must build a website and optimize it for mobile devices so that the relevant target audience can get in touch with the business. Be it e-commerce SEO, local SEO services, etc., it is vital to have a website so that the users can easily contact the business. Some of the benefits of hiring an SEO company are mentioned below.
a. Boosts website credibility - When you hire an SEO company to work on your website, the essential point that they concentrate upon is that they help boost website credibility. Whether you use offshore SEO services or outsource local SEO services, the SEO agency provides you with SEO consultants that focus on boosting website credibility. The higher the website's credibility for a search engine or social media platforms, the better the chances for the website's appearance on the keywords or search terms entered. When your website has higher domain authority and a lower spam score, the chances of the website's credibility increases. Google Bot can easily perform crawling & indexing on your website, enabling them to show relevant results. If you have a website with a huge number of pages, you must ensure that you focus on SEO pagination and page loading speed to increase the users' time on the page.
b. Increases brand awareness - The next essential benefit of hiring an SEO company is that they help in building brand awareness with white label SEO services. The SEO professionals concentrate on performing SEO keyword research, writing great content, etc., so that the website ranking on the SERPs increases. When the impression share of your website for the users' search query increases, the number of clicks on the website increases. This helps more users see the website for products or services.
c. Improve users engagement - When the brand awareness of the website increases, the next essential point that the hired SEO firm focuses on is to improve user engagement. Suppose you have a great surge in website traffic and many users are visiting your webpage, but the website has a lower engagement rate. It is now time to focus on improving the user engagement rate.
With white label SEO services, you hire SEO consultants that perform a complete SEO audit to determine the website's health and analyze the user behavior, user intent, etc., to determine what changes need to be done to enhance user engagement. The SEO agency provides SEO professionals that help with audience segmentation in determining the users who do window shopping, users that add products to cart but do not make a purchase, etc. They then help you with the plan & strategy and focus on increasing website navigation so that the user engagement rate increases. They focus on converting the visitor to the customer so that the user engagement rate on the website increases. It is also essential as when the users are satisfied with the products or services that the business offers, they are likely to share the brand name, which helps in peer-to-peer marketing.
d. Helps in revenue generation - When you have a higher user engagement rate to your website, the better the conversion rate for your website. The enhanced conversion rate for your website boosts online sales and helps in revenue generation. When running using search engine optimization techniques to enhance website performance, the goals of many businesses are to generate revenue. This means that the focus needs to be on providing the best core products or services along with an amazing online experience. The user interested in purchasing your business offerings must be served with the best online marketing path so that the website does not have a negative impact. The SEO professionals work on optimizing the SEO errors like fixing 3xx & 4xx errors, avoiding duplicate content, optimizing title tags, using appropriate word count, etc.
Mistakes to avoid when choosing best SEO company
1. They promise fast results - When choosing the best SEO company, the common SEO mistake is falling prey to firms promising fast results. SEO is an ongoing process and getting results in a quick time would be a false promise to make. As the results continue to improve, the right SEO company would make continuous efforts to deliver the desired results but cannot provide an exact timeline. They would focus on improving the performance of the website, which ultimately yields the desired results. It may include writing great content on a website, performing backlink analysis, optimizing title tags, etc.
When you outsource SEO services to a white label SEO company, they can assist you with the quality of work that they put in and discuss it with you. You can discuss a given situation with them and ask them by what time they can expect to see the desired results. E.g., if you say that your website has high traffic relevant keywords, page loading speed is good, etc., then also you do not experience the desired website traffic. Based on this, the SEO firm would provide you with the relevant information, like you need to perform competitor analysis, optimize content for competitors' keywords, the page has keyword cannibalization, etc. There are also chances that Google targets the wrong page for the users' search queries. The best SEO company would provide solutions for increasing branded search traffic and would not boast fast results. This also works the same with social media marketing; like, you write engaging social media posts but do not see traffic on the website. It may be due to the point that your posts do not have enough likes, do not have many subscribers, etc.
2. Do not track performance regularly - Another mistake to steer clear of when choosing the best SEO company is to avoid the ones that do not track performance regularly. The outsourced SEO company needs to provide a complete SEO report to analyze the results of the SEO metrics. When the SEO firm tracks the performance regularly, they can assist you with the relevant ideas of what needs to be done and excluded to achieve the desired results. The report helps to have a clear idea of making decisions and avoids guesses that may reduce web traffic.
As there are myths regarding PPC advertising, social media marketing myths, etc., so there are SEO myths that need to be avoided. The best SEO agency cannot get stuck to any of these myths as this may become a perception for them that might get reflected in the work they deliver. The SEO agency needs to provide a complete report regularly so that the performance of the essential SEO KPIs can be analyzed. They need to avoid any SEO errors that have a drastic impact on the website's performance. The SEO firm can conduct an SEO audit and highlight the KPIs that need to be concentrated upon.
3. Not having any testimonials - Trust is the foremost thing that helps build relationships with the SEO company. So, it is crucial to avoid the mistake of choosing an SEO company that does not have testimonials. Having testimonials mentioned on the website lets you know that the company has previously worked with clients. It also boasts the point that the business has experience working with clients.
The testimonials act as proof of how satisfied the clients are working with the SEO professionals. The SEO company can also add a ratings and reviews section so that they can mention the ratings given by the client. It helps to determine how satisfied the users are with the SEO firms. Before choosing any top SEO agency, you need to do proper research and then have a conclusion. One of the best ways to do so is to have proof that provides plenty of information. You can add case studies that mention how your SEO experts have worked with various clients and have planned strategies accordingly to achieve the desired goals.
4. Do not work with latest marketing trends - Another common mistake to avoid is choosing an SEO company that does not work with the latest marketing trends. The online marketing world keeps evolving with multiple market trends. SEO marketers need to be constantly updated with these trends to sidestep missing out on any essential pointers when optimizing the website.
For E.g., Google EAT was enhanced to Google E-E-A-T by the largest search engine. So, the marketers that work on increasing the website's authoritativeness and trustworthiness must ensure they have knowledge of the extra ‘E” in the abbreviation. When they have the knowledge that this ‘E’ stands for experience, then they would focus on increasing users' experience so that the page rank algorithm by the search engine allocates a good score to your website when ranking on the SERPs. Whether you are running paid ad campaigns, content marketing campaigns, or email marketing campaigns, staying updated with the latest marketing trends is crucial for all forms of online marketing. E,g, for paid ad campaigns, responsive search ads becoming the default type for expanded text ads, end of broad match modifiers, etc. So, any PPC expert must be updated with these changes and conduct PPC keyword research accordingly to increase clicks on the ad. Similarly, the SEO company should have complete knowledge of the marketing trends to satisfy the client's requirements. So, you must discuss with the SEO firm whether they are updated with these trends before taking any further steps when optimizing the website.
5. Their offers are cheaper in the market - ‘Quality is not free’. So when looking to outsource SEO services to an SEO company, be alarmful of the companies that provide cheap offers to deliver the projects. It must be noted here that you may get the work done at a cheaper rate, but when you do not achieve the goals, then you will have to pay extra again for the same tasks. It would cause you to pay again for the same work and take your precious time. So, it is essential that you do not compromise quality with the cost. Good SEO agencies know the importance of quality work, and for this, they have to pay a cost to their team members. So, this leads to an increased amount of work for the clients. However, with the best SEO company, rest assured of quality work by the quality in-house SEO team so that you can focus on your core business.
6. Partnering with non-experienced SEO agency - There is no substitute for experience. You need to avoid choosing a non-experienced SEO agency as they may not have the desired knowledge of the project that you assign them. Having said this, it cannot be stated that the new SEO agencies cannot help achieve the marketing goals, but there are chances that SEO mistakes may still be present.
However, when working with an experienced SEO agency, they do not stick to a single strategy and follow multiple plans to achieve the goals. They have certified SEO professionals, content specialists, email marketers, etc., that toil hard to meet their client's requirements. They focus on the core essentials like attracting potential customers, increasing user engagement on the webpage, optimizing the website for mobile devices, improving page loading speed, etc., which leads to increasing website visibility and ultimately meeting the objectives.
7. Long-term partnership - The next mistake to avoid when choosing an SEO company is that you need not look for long-term relationships at the early stages. ‘It's easy to say than done’, is an age-old saying, meaning that you need to first see the results from the projects that they complete. Many agencies would promise to keep long-term partnerships and assure you that you will have the desired results. However, this is not always true and maybe over time, you realize that you are ready to let off the SEO agency.
The best practice here is to start with small projects with the SEO company and see if they can complete them within time. You need to monitor the result and make a decision whether you wish to continue with the outsourced SEO agency or not. If you are satisfied with the results, then you can continue assigning the task and then look to build a long-term partnership or else withdraw from it.
8. They practice black-hat SEO - The next common mistake to avoid when choosing an SEO company is to avoid the SEO firms that practice black-hat SEO. In the world of digital marketing, where SEO metrics highlight the performance of the website, it is essential to analyze techniques that SEO marketers use to improve website performance. So, you need to have a clear discussion with the SEO consultants from the white label SEO company about the processes they would be using to optimize the website.
Whether you use offshore SEO services, local SEO services, white label SEO services, you can always ask them to assign virtual assistants for your project that keeps you updated on the methods adopted. You need to ensure that they focus on white hat techniques like link building, using quality content, keyword targeting, improving user experience, etc. These techniques may take time to achieve the desired results but avoid any search engine penalties. It also does not negatively impact your brand and you need to focus on working on customer retention strategies so that the users stay in touch with your business in the long run.
Conclusion
To succeed in digital marketing, it is crucial for marketers to consistently stay ahead of the game to ensure their efforts are well-spent. To stay ahead of your competitors, you must employ effective strategies that showcase your business's products or services. It is imperative to remain focused on one's core business while taking proactive measures to improve page ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). Avoiding common mistakes when choosing the best SEO company will significantly enhance your website's performance metrics, like organic traffic, page visibility, etc. If you are still determining which SEO mistakes to avoid, it may be wise to outsource to a digital marketing company with SEO professionals with expertise in small business SEO, guest posting, enterprise SEO, SEO analytics, video SEO, etc., that help you achieve your objectives.
References:
• 8 Biggest Mistakes in Hiring an SEO Company
• How to choose an SEO agency